Each year at Calvary we begin the year with a focus on prayer and the Word. I’ll say a bit more about that in another post soon, as I introduce our new sermon series, The Fundamentals.

For now, let me encourage you to feed richly on the Bible this year. As food is for your stomach, so the Scriptures are for your soul. You need the Word to live. And since you won’t always have a copy with you, you need to hide it in your mind and heart.

To that end, something many of us at Calvary take advantage of to help us memorize  Scripture is the Fighter Verse program (available on the resource table in the church lobby as well, and on our website). There are two main kinds of memorizing Scripture: smaller chunks (the strength of the Fighter Verse program) and larger chunks (whole chapters or whole books of the Bible).

This year is a special treat, because we are in “Set E” in the Fighter Verse packet. And what that means is we will combine both types of memory. For, while we will be doing smaller passages each week, we will spend the year learning the entire Sermon on the Mount! (The schedule for the whole year)

Won’t it be wonderful, on December 31, 2012, to look back and realize you have memorized an entire sermon given by Jesus Christ? And here is what he himself said about the value of his preaching:

  “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

  And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

(Matthew 7:24-29, ESV)

So, won’t you join us this year? Here is the second Fighter Verse passage of 2012 (the first was Daniel 2:20b-21), and the beginning of the sermon on the mount, by Jesus Christ:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

(Matthew 5:3-6, ESV)

Glorious truth and promise to hide in your heart this week:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

~ Romans 8:31-32, ESV

To memorize and quote this coming Sunday:

11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

~ Romans 10:11-13, ESV

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Romans 10:9-10, ESV

This is a great passage given the two-part sermon we are in the midst of at Calvary:

“…you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God….[So], put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

~ 1 Corinthians 6:11; Romans 13:14, ESV

Here is the fighter verse passage to memorize this week, quite apropos given the sermon this last Sunday:

  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  (Ephesians 5:25-27, ESV)

Knowing God’s words, listening to his voice, and obeying what he says, is good for us:

“But this command I gave them:

‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’”

(Jeremiah 7:23, ESV)

The fighter verse to recite for this Sunday is…

I am watching over my word to perform it.
     ~ Jeremiah 1.12b

I love how powerful one sentence of Scripture can be. It is like something found in concentrate - add a little to it and you get so much more. Add a little meditation, a little pondering, a little praying over this half of a verse, and explosions occur.

How about just one consideration: this half-verse undergirds the trust you should have in all of the promises of God in his Word, the Bible, for you. Through the Holy Spirit, God inspired a Word to you. God, the Almighty Creator of all things, is watching over those words to you. He knows they are there. He has not forgotten them. But his activity does not end with merely watching, he will perform it. The things that he has said there, he…will…do!

Grab hold of this declaration and this promise that proclaims all the other promises - his word will not return empty! (Isaiah 55:11)